Some of the posts of the old stockade fence, survivors of that dread prison will be interested to know, still stand. There, within a space of thirteen acres, 52,345 men, the very flower of the Republic, were kept in a pen. For thirteen months they were exposed in that rude stockade to the heat in summer and the cold in winter, to blistering sun and chilling blasts. From cruelty and exposure, hunger and thirst, disease and dirt, they died like sheep. Every fourth man died! The story of "Providence Spring" is universally familiar. It proves that God is yet with men as of old. The water supply for these thousands in that small space consisted of but one little brook which of course soon became unspeakably foul. In their thirst they cried unto God for water. He who hears the cry of the raven could not be dumb to the prayer of the suffering soldier. It was night. Soon the sky was overcast with clouds, the lightnings flashed, the thunders rolled, and a great rain came that night. Next morning a fountain of living water sparkled in God's sunshine near where the devout soldier had knelt in prayer the night before. In recognition of God's providential gift they christened it "Providence Spring." Today a pavilion of stone, erected by the Woman's National Relief Corps, commemorates the spot. Two significant utterances are carved on marble tablets in the pavilion. On one we read these words: "The prisoner's cry of thirst rang up to heaven. God heard and with his thunders cleft the earth, and poured forth his sweetest waters gushing here." Over the fountain, which has never ceased from that day to this, carved in Georgia marble are the great words of that great man in whose big soul the nation was born again: "With charity to all and malice toward none." As I stood by this spot and looked up on the hill I felt a new love of country stir within my heart. I could but say in my heart I would rather be a plain American citizen, though black, than a knighted Roman under Caesar. As we think of that prison we are thankful for the cemetery. The prison typifies suffering. The cemetery is the symbol of peace. Through that gateway of suffering our martyrs entered into peace. How typical of the nation! Through the crucible of suffering it entered into peace." [Illustration: FLAG DAY: ANDERSONVILLE CEMETERY] [Illustration: THE MICHIGAN MONUMENT IN ANDERSONVILLE CEMETERY] APPENDIX E. SHALL THE GOVERNMENT CONFER PERMANENT HONORS ON CONFEDERATE HEROES? The magnanimity which dictated the terms of surrender at Appomattox was typical of the treatment extended by the Government of the United States to its defeated opponents. Well might this be so. The sinews of strength of the mighty North had through the four years of desperate conflict grown strong indeed.